Hong Kong, Singapore delay travel bubble

Hong Kong and Singapore have announced they have postponed the launch of their planned “travel bubble” arrangement, originally due to start on November 22, 2020, due to a wave of new COVID-19 cases in the Chinese territory. The plan was put on hold for two weeks just a day before it was originally due to launch. According to the ch-aviation schedules module, Cathay Pacific (CX, Hong Kong Int’l) and Scoot (TR, Singapore Changi) each planned to launch daily flights between Hong Kong Int’l and Singapore Changi following the bubble’s inception, while the latter’s parent, Singapore Airlines (SQ, Singapore Changi), planned 4x weekly services. In contrast to most of the travel bubbles in operation globally, travel between Singapore and Hong Kong will be unrestricted and available to all passengers with no additional precautions, although with a daily quota of 200 passengers travelling each way. Cathay Pacific said that the demand for flights to Singapore was “overwhelming” with tickets sold out for the first four weeks of operations, the South China Morning Post has reported. While both countries have had extremely low, single- or low double-digit numbers of new daily cases since mid-September, Hong Kong has recorded a spike in the last few days, reaching 80 new cases on November 24. While still remarkably low by global standards, the spike prompted authorities to tighten their restrictions. Besides the mooted passenger flights, there is ample cargo traffic between the two cities with Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Air Hong Kong (LD, Hong Kong Int’l), Hong Kong Air Cargo (RH, Hong Kong Int’l), and Cargolux (CV, Luxembourg) all operating scheduled cargo services on this route.